moving on with it.

Links

Living with my mom was fun. I was a respected member of the family committee once more, I had to pay 125 dollars a month for rent. That made me feel growed-up. Sisters was awesome. Up here in the mountains there are actual seasons. I liked the snow and sun. Which is where I am now, which is seven years from the time I left, so I suppose there is more to tell. When I drove my little 1980 Accord up into the snow I thought I had it under control. I got clear up the driveway where I could see the house, then I buried my car in a snow bank. I carried what I needed to the house, then had to look at my car out the kitchen window for three weeks until there was enough melt to dig it out. The melt, however, had encased my wheels in ice, and I had to bust it all off with a 2 by 4. Where was your dad when you needed him? It was funny, though. I had to go out every day and dig the snow off of it so no one would crash into it. So when I got a job at Figaro’s across town, I was less than thrilled to walk there in the snow. The first person I met in Sisters was Saylor. Saylor was a pretty girl my age. She was charismatic in a way, but she was also one of those energy-sucking people. The ones who after awhile, make you realize that you don’t have the energy to spare. She could be fun, but she was also very confrontational. It seemed like she was in a fight with someone at any given time. She introduced me to her friends, and her boyfriend Tom. I had actually met Tom awhile before I moved to Sisters, because he was working for my mom at a restaurant here in town. Anyhow, Tom and I totally hit it off. Once in a while you meet someone you can talk to for hours and hours and never run out of things to say. That’s how it was for Tom and me. There was nothing devious about it really. We were just terrific friends. I really needed a terrific friend. When Saylor fucked around and gave him an STD, I drove him to the health department. We would go out to dinner a lot. We just enjoyed each others company. Saylor became lamer and lamer- not that she got much worse, it was just the more time you were around her, the less you liked her. I stopped returning her calls, stopped being home at her regularly scheduled times (she always came over after work and school). Tom dumped her at some point, I don’t know when. But after living in Sisters for a year, we got the news that they were going to burn down our house, along with the thirty or so others that made up the shantytown where we lived. Sisters is not an area known for cheap rent, and what there was, they were burning down. Our roommate Craig and I looked at a couple places to rent together. I wanted to stay. Craig was like my best friend. He was 25 or something at the time. We had a lot of fun together. Craig was a very sweet, devoted kind of person, and when he came home drunk from the bar one night and said he was in love with me, I was crushed. I did love him very, very much, but not as a lover. The worst part is how to tell someone that. Someone you really care for. Someone who’s feelings you really value. Especially when no one else has ever professed their love to you. That’s when I decided I had to move away. Craig was the kind of person that would give me anything I wanted. The kind of person who I could manipulate, and knowing all of the bad things about myself, I knew that before the end he would probably hate me or hate himself, so that’s what I told him. I’m sure it didn’t make him feel any better. So I got a hold of Tammy, my old neighbor who lived next door before I went to live with my dad. Tammy is 11 years older than I, I used to raise her kids while she worked. She gave me a safe place to go to smoke and drink and party, and since it was only next door, I think my mom was glad. Tammy and I had always been in touch, and now she and her husband Mike were living in Milwaukee (actually, the city limit sign was right in front of our house, so technically, the kids’ room and the bathroom were in Portland, and the rest of the house was in Milwaukee) and were totally down for renting me a room. So I got packed up and ready to go. When I told Craig, he was very um, I don’t know, gracious, I guess. He didn’t make me feel bad, and he didn’t make the last days awkward, for which I was very thankful. When I got in touch with Tom, who was pretty much the only other person who cared, he was excited. He had talked to his mom in Washington the night before and she wanted him to come live up there and go to school. So he decided. I thought it was rad! I was going to move away to the city and my very best friend was moving only 45 minutes away. Tom had lived here all his life, and we were just glad that we wouldn’t be all alone. Then it got ruined. Sexual tension, dudes. It was fucked up. He came to stay a couple times and we would just talk and laugh like always. But one night we started making out and ended up doing the deed. God, it felt weird. As soon as we were done, I knew it was a mistake. We didn’t look at each other the same. We still talked on the phone and wrote a couple letters after that but I didn’t invite him to stay and he didn’t ask to. I don’t know what. I was 17; I was still very self conscious. Maybe it was the fact that he saw my fat ass, and I didn’t have all the confidence I now have in my sexual skin. I did not love it, either way. That is one of my biggest regrets in life, really. I have never met someone else like him. I’m afraid that I never will. I think most people don’t. And there have been many times since that I needed a friend like that. Living in the city freaked me out. The traffic and the anonymity. Those were the worst two things. I may have had a different time if I’d been older, but I was lonely and bored. I never told Tom I was moving. I got a forwarded letter he wrote and didn’t reply. I felt ashamed for some reason. I can’t explain that icky feeling. Lack of vocab, I guess.

• Edit-Me